Through The Glass
by AnotherPerson5
Summary: Pushing Daises. Ned/Chuck, Ned/Olive/Chuck. WARNING: Character death. R&R always appreciated.


**Disclaimer: Again, character death. Inspired by the song "Through the Glass" by Stone Sour. **

**Through the Glass**

Ned reaches out to touch the tombstone of Chuck, the original one, now properly filled.

If he really thought about it he would have found it sort of ironic. He brought her into the world with a kiss, having intended her to live only a few moments, then when she did it broke his heart. He guesses it all depends on what someone considers a moment. Seconds, hours, days years.

Emerson pulls a few strings and gets a hold of a couple guys who don't ask why they're digging up what they realize is an empty grave and refilling it with the body that was supposed to be there in the first place. He doesn't ask Ned if he wants to be there for it, just calls him when it's done and meets him at the gate to the cemetery. _Dead girl, dead again. _He has the tact not to say it, but Ned knows he's thinking it as they stare at Chuck's tombstone. His hat is tilted down and when he leaves he unearths a bouquet of dead flowers in plastic wrap from his overcoat which he hands to Ned. His mouth opens to say something, words of condolences, an offer to wait for him, before settling with a small pat to the pie makers shoulder and picking his way through the graves back to the car.

Ned holds the flowers by the wrap, touching a petal and watching the daises spring to life.

~*~

"_What do you think of these? Really brighten up the place don't they?" Chuck arranges the potted flowers on the table, yellow and pink apron spotted with dirt and the scent of honey, pink roses scattered through her dark hair, looking like the embodiment of a summer garden. _

"_Ned?"_

"_Oh, yes?" he's struggling to contain a smile_

"_Don't they brighten up the place?"_

"_Oh…yes."_

_She beams and he wants to say that that's a lie. That __**she **__is the one who__ brightens up the room. But he doesn't, he just watches her leave the kitchen in satisfaction and smiles into his coffee cup._

~*~

He drags his knuckles over her name. Chuck. Charlotte Charles. The love of his life and he the love of her after life. After life. What is there? When he touches them again where do they go? Back to where they were before he touched them. Some place better, worse, any place at all? He touches the daises again, watching them dry out, brown, fall apart. Where do all the dead flowers go anyways?

"Nowhere." He says aloud, "They go into the wind and they never come back like…" _you._

_~*~_

_Olive is between them, fingers interlaced with Chuck and Ned, short enough for them to be able to stare into one another's eyes. Ned's grasp on hers is soft, barely at the finger tips. Chuck's nails are digging into her knuckles, staring intently into the eyes of the pie maker._

"_Thank you," Ned says at last_

_Chuck shrugs, "No need to thank me."_

"_You might thank me," Olive puts in, "Seeing as how I'll be the one running the shop while doll face over here just sits and looks pretty at the register."_

_Ned's lips quirk upwards, "Thanks Olive."_

_He has to got to Italy with Emerson to follow a lead, and like the detective said, 'Dead girls can't get passports'. The lead happens to be a multiple murderer who likes his privacy and the anger in her eyes when Emerson lets that slip had sent the detective just about sprinting towards the door._

_But Ned had looked at her with that way he has of looking at her. That he'd saved her from death once and he didn't want to have to do it again so she'd tamped down on her anger and told him she'd stay.. That the bees need tending and she doesn't want to crack the fragile friendship forming between herself and Olive. She's putting his worries before her wants and he wants to show her that he appreciates it. _

_He raises Olive's hand to his lips hesitantly and when the blond gives a small nod he kisses it. Chuck loosens her grip and presses Olive's palm to her lips. She was just in the back with Ned as he taught her some of his newest recipes so her palms smell of fruit and pastry and __**him**__. Then the hand drops and Chuck drags Olive's lips to hers and the small woman squeaks, her breath catches and her eyes close. Their lips part, but the brunette's forehead is still pressed against Olive's. There's tears on their cheeks and neither care who they belong to._

"_I'll miss you." she whispers, "Please please don't get hurt."_

_Ned swallows hard, his fists digging deep into his pockets to keep from doing something stupid. From reaching out, from kissing from touching and from making promises he can't keep. Instead he lets out a breath and takes a step backward_

"_I'll try."_

_From the car he watches the two women hug each other from behind the counter, Chuck's knuckles white, Olive combing her fingers through the other's hair with lips moving against her ear._

_~*~_

He rips off the plastic wrap around the flowers, squeezes his hands tightly around them, trying to recreate the spark, trying to bring them back. He should have made her promise. He should have of made her promise not to get hurt. But he didn't, he'd sat in the car and watch someone else tell her everything was going to be okay. He'd left her. He'd left her and she'd died. Again. And again and again in his own head.

~*~

Olive finds him in the same spot, dead daises scattered all around him. His hands in his pockets, eyes closed. She places a hand on the small of his back

"Ned, sweetie, you know you can talk to me."

But he can't. He wants to tell her that since he saw Chuck's body the first time it was like he fell into a great dangerous dream where anything could happen so it did and now he's woken up to find that nothing has really changed at all. He'll go back to the pie shop and Olive will pack up all of chuck's things while he watches from the bed and eventually Emerson will call him for another job and soon all he'll have left is the tightening of his heart when he sees plastic wrap or the lingering scent of honey and flowers on his apron. And even that…even that will fade.

~*~

_When Ned enters the shop, Chuck is laughing at a line in some book she's reading, seated on the counter top while Emerson and Olive have an argument over why it is not acceptable in any circumstance to refer to a grown man's stomach as a Honey Pot._

"_Honey pot, not __**a **__honey pot. A place where your honey can rest her hand. Look."_

"_Woman if you put your hand anywhere near my stomach." he focuses on Ned, his eyes flicking from Olive to the door, "Would you mind wrangling your little blonde smurfette?"_

_Chuck lifts her head from the book, "Did you know the smurfs originated from a comic in the fifties about these two travelers Johan and Pirlouit? They encountered the wizard while on a mystic voyage to recover a magic flute. Smurfs were actually pretty minor characters. Isn't it interesting how something considered a blip on another person's consciousness can grow to be so influential and loved by so many people?_

_She blinks when she realizes they're all looking at her. Olive is smirking, Emerson is staring at her blankly and Ned is gazing at her in part amusement part tethered adoration._

"_Yes," he breathes._


End file.
